


Coming Home

by Mix Stitch (Synph)



Category: DCU, Outsiders
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-22
Updated: 2012-06-22
Packaged: 2017-12-25 07:28:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/950347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Synph/pseuds/Mix%20Stitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After his latest mission, Roy makes a decision that'll change their lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coming Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cleromancy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cleromancy/gifts).



> Sisky did a gorgeous and like super moving [Roy/Dick picture](http://cleromancy.tumblr.com/post/25341779309/this-is-probably-a-reunion-of-some-sort-maybe) the other day and like I had to write vaguely angsty fic for it because it got me right in the feels. (It deals with superheroes worrying about mortality and stuff.)

Roy is in a ton of pain.  

Every part of his body that can hurt does, from his toes crammed inside his boots and aching from several long nights spent on his feet all the way up to the very tips of his singed and peeling ears. He smells like smoke and chemicals and even a quick blast of Clark’s breath when they were on their way to some kind of debriefing at the Watchtower hadn’t done much to get rid of the smell.

Now Roy smells like several fires’ worth of ash  _and_ the spicy vegetarian curry that Clark had eaten for dinner.

Great.

Roy is a hot mess, but he’s finally close to home. He only has one more stop to make before he can check in on Lian and then crawl into a  _real_  bed and it’s a stop that almost as important as seeing Lian sleeping soundly in her bed. It’s been four days since he’s seen his baby girl’s face, but it’s been twice as long since the last time that Roy has seen his lover in any capacity.

So Roy goes looking for Dick the second that he can escape from Diana’s mildly worried gaze.

He tries the small room where Dick is supposed to be laid out and recovering from working the monitors for two shifts straight. Nothing.

Same with the gym.

And the computer rooms.

Even Dick’s favorite quiet spot above one of Clark’s little space gardens has nothing, not even the faintest trace of Dick’s presence.

And then the answer hits Roy —literally.

The answer to his lover’s whereabouts comes thanks to a little speedster who is awake far past her bed time and far too hyper for their surroundings. Irey West is close to Lian’s age and the little redhead seems to have a similar knack for reading the emotion right off of Roy’s face. Irey crashes into Roy as he trudges back to the transport stations and then bounces back to her feet in the space of time that it takes Roy to register that the little missile that had hit him in the stomach is one of Wally’s kids. She takes one look at Roy’s face and reads him like a book.

“You’re looking for uncle Nightwing aren’t you?” She doesn’t wait for Roy to answer and then reaches for one of Roy’s hands so that she can toe him behind her as she takes off at a speed just slightly above that of an average human being. “I  _told_  Daddy that they should have told him you were coming back tonight. But grownups are weird. But you can make everything better now.”

By the time that Roy figures out which direction it is that they’re heading, they’re already at the door to the monitor room. He glances over at Irey’s smiling face and has to shake his head at the obviousness of it all. “He was here the whole time?”

Irey beams and nods her head hard enough to shake her pigtails. “Yup,” she says as Roy’s fingers smooth over the outside of the door. “You should probably go tell him you’re okay.” The tiny speedster buzzes off without another word, laughter tinkling in the air as Roy stands with one hand flattened to the outside of the door to the monitor room as though he’s afraid to open it.

And on some level, maybe he is—

* * *

Dick is standing with his back to the door when Roy comes in.

The younger man doesn’t look back for the pneumatic hissing of the doors as they slide open and shut. He doesn’t look away from his bank of monitors when the thud of Roy’s boots comes closer; probably assuming that it’s someone checking his progress.

“I haven’t heard anything from Roy yet,” Dick says to whoever he thinks he’s talking too and there’s something in his voice —something hollow and fragile-sounding— that causes Roy to flinch and hate himself for not coming here first. “If he’s alive, no one’s told me.”

Roy reaches out and closes one hand over the curve of Dick’s shoulder to get his attention. “I’m alive,” he says in a voice that’s rough with some emotion that Roy doesn’t want to express outside of the safety of their bedroom. “I’m mostly fine.” He looks at Dick’s face, at the telltale tics and flinches that give away exactly how worried Dick had been. “I’m sorry, I didn’t come here first.”

Dick firms his mouth and then shakes his head. “Don’t you dare apologize,” he says, turning to face Roy fully. “I should have figured that if Clark was back, you’d be back too, but I—” Dick cuts himself off and then smiles sheepishly at his lover.

“You assumed the worst.” Roy finishes Dick’s sentence and reaches out so that he can splay his palm over the warmth of his lover’s side. “It’s okay,” he promises as he feels Dick’s muscles jump and twitch underneath the touch of his bare fingers. “I do it sometimes too.”

He’s not lying. He can’t  _stop_  thinking that the worst would happen. No matter how much faith he holds in Dick’s abilities, there’s always that scared little voice in the back of his head insisting that this time might be the time when Dick wouldn’t make it back and Roy would have to explain things to Lian. He shudders and watches as Dick’s gaze sharpens with knowing.

Dick licks his lips to wet them (even though Roy remembers buying him some kind of balm and stowing it in his suit pockets) and his eyes dart away from Roy’s own. “Roy—”

Roy shakes his head, cutting Dick off before he can continue speaking. “Please don’t flip me,” he says in a pleading tone and in the seconds that Dick spends blinking at him as though he’s confused, Roy dips Dick. He dips Dick and kisses him firmly on the mouth as though he’s been staring for it.

The kiss is romantic enough, but as Roy dips Dick, bending him over one arm as he kisses his lover senseless, he finds himself failing at not thinking of all of the times that could have kept this from happening. All of the times that would have taken Dick from him or vice versa. All of the injuries that could have been a little higher or a little lower. A little more serious.

He breaks the kiss before it can become something desperate and pitiful and rubs the rough edge of his thumb over Dick’s cheek where a bruise had been forming right before Roy’s departure. “I don’t know if I can do this anymore.”

Dick jerks out of Roy’s grip, looking almost offended but mostly confused. “Do what?”

Roy shrugs, feeling his shoulders  _ache_  when the movement pulls at his injuries. “Leave you guys,” he says quickly, “Go off on missions where I can’t reach anyone.” He frowns and then reaches for Dick’s hands so that he can hold then loosely. “I don’t even have a will! What if I die? What if  _you_ die? I’m too old to leave Lian like this.”

“Roy, I—” Dick slides his hands out of Roy’s hold and then cups his lover’s cheeks so that Roy doesn’t stand a chance of looking away. He bites his lip and then makes a face as though he is obviously discarding whatever thought had come to him. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

Dick kisses Roy and there’s the desperation, the need, the fear of being separated by death.

Roy wraps his arms around Dick’s waist and pours his all into the kiss until he feels like a hollow man with nothing else to give. They break apart and Roy presses his face to the side of Dick’s head, still stuck on what he can say.

It’s not that quitting is out of the cards. They’ve both done it before and they know exactly what going back to a normal life entails. Roy  _knows_  that. He understands it with every fiber of his being, but he can’t—

Roy can’t let Dick go and tell him that he’s been thinking of buying a real house somewhere safe and sunny. He can’t say that he’s been waiting for the best time to ask Dick to move in permanently. He can’t tell Dick that he’s had the ring picked out for months —for years if he’s willing to be honest about his feelings when Lian was a baby.

He can’t let go of this life even when he knows that it’s something that he needs to do to make sure that he has any life at all.

In the end, Roy only manages to say one thing as Dick holds him close and they both try to pretend that they’re fine. “I’m glad I’m here too.”


End file.
